


Patriot's Day

by thestanceyg



Series: Darcy Lewis April Challenge [20]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: F/M, terrifying spiders, writing challenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-20
Updated: 2015-04-20
Packaged: 2018-03-24 22:20:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3786391
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thestanceyg/pseuds/thestanceyg
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky and Darcy never talk to each other, but that changes when she comes across a giant spider.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Patriot's Day

**Author's Note:**

> Day 20
> 
> Holiday: Patriot's Day  
> Prompt: this is totally awkward considering before this the only interactions we’ve ever had have been casual nods to each other in the hallway but there’s a huge fucking spider in my bath tub and you seem like the friendly neighbor type please help me

Darcy had been living in the tower for nearly six months when Bucky Barnes came home.  Steve, Sam, and Natasha had been tracking him down (more like following his trail of Hydra destruction), but in the end he came home on his own.  He showed up on a Wednesday in a brown leather jacket and a baseball cap just as Steve was heading out for some lunch.  He called out to Steve, and there were a couple of tense minutes, and then Steve laughed, clapped him on the back, and they went back up in the elevator Steve had been in earlier, lunch forgotten, to get a full workup by medical and to talk to Tony.

There had been yelling in the labs that day.  Tony was understandably cautious and upset.  Eventually the volatility had forced Jane and Darcy from the labs.  That night they had way too many margaritas, sang along to loud angry girl rock, and cried about boys until they fell asleep.  Drunk Darcy had made sure to turn off any and all alarms, so they slept until the afternoon.  When they went back to the lab, everything was quiet, and Jarvis informed them that Bucky was moving in. Jane just shrugged and got back to work, so Darcy turned on her computer and got to working with the data.

Bucky and Darcy didn’t spend much time together.  In fact, she only saw him when one of them was going in or out of Tony’s lab.  They would nod at each other like, “hey, you are a person on this floor and so am I and now our need to feel acknowledged is complete.”  Tony was working on a new arm for Bucky because “that piece of Soviet shit is offending my sense of freedom.”  Every now and then Darcy would wander in, remind Tony he needed to eat, or trick him into signing something, and then she’d nod at Bucky and go on her way.  Once he ran into her in the hallway, arms full of papers and coffee cups.  He gently pulled a precariously perched cup from her hands, and wordlessly followed her into the lab where he put down the cup, nodded at her, and left.  He, essentially, never said a word to her.  She wasn’t offended.  He only talked to a few people, and she wasn’t one of them.  If he changed his mind, well, she wouldn’t mind.  But she wouldn’t push it either.  Darcy knew he still was “working through things” (Steve only talked in euphemisms about Bucky), so she would let him make the first move.

She’d be lying though if she said it didn’t give her a bit of a thrill when his fingers brushed hers when he took that coffee from her.  So she didn’t say it.  She just thought about it.  A lot.

Darcy found a spider so large it must have been an escaped experiment on a Thursday.  Spiders were her somewhat irrational fear.  She had been bitten by a black widow when she was little and it super sucked.  Any spider terrified her after that.  So when she pulled back the shower curtain to turn on the water, and found a spider the size of Uruguay on the faucet, she screamed so loud she was certain she rattled windows, grabbed a towel, and ran into the hall.

She realized she was still screaming when two hands landed on her shoulders and turned her into a broad chest, pulling her in tight.  She had stopped screaming, but now was hyperventilating.  She vaguely heard Jarvis explaining the situation.  Just hearing the word “spider” caused her to grab more tightly onto her savior.  One of his (it had to be a guy because it smelled like a guy) hands slid up her back into her hair, softly petting it.  And then a head lowered next to her ear, stubble softly scratching her face and whispered quietly to her.

“You’re safe now doll.  You’re safe with me.”

She nodded and hiccuped herself into a more normal breathing pattern.  When she was finally mostly calm, she looked up into the eyes of the man that had held her while she came down from her terror induced high.  When she saw that it was Bucky, she gave a small smile and nodded once.  His lips quirked up in return as he hugged her tightly one more and then let her go, nodding back.

Another thing she’d never say was how she thought that a man who had fought in wars and killed people;  a man that was equal parts patriot and enemy; was the best source of comfort she’d had in years. She felt safer with him than she realized was possible.

“Don’t know how that got up here,” Tony said conversationally.  “That guy was for a little something I was working on to surprise Bruce with.  It wouldn’t have hurt you, but it was pretty big.  In fact, bigger than I was anticipating.  Hmmm,” he said turning away, muttering science gibberish under his breath.

Darcy looked back at her room.  She still wanted to shower, but she couldn’t bring herself to go back in there.  A hand tugged on hers, pulling her down the hall into a different room.  As she took in the sparse furnishings of Bucky’s apartment, he pulled out a t-shirt and shorts, handed them to her, and gently pushed her into the bathroom.

The shower was a quick affair; Darcy was still wary of spiders that might appear, but it felt good to be clean.  His clothes smelled just like he had when holding her, and that helped calm her down again.

Bucky spoke to Darcy again on a Tuesday a few weeks later with a shy smile and a few wilting daisies in his hands.  He softly asked if she might like to see a movie.  And then his fingers brushed hers when she took the flowers, and she knew she could never tell him no.

 


End file.
